Difficulty issues

[Strife88]

Hello all.
I liked this mod, its very intresting in all its forms. The aditional units and bildings are so cool.

But i think there are some difficulty issues in the game.
In the unmoded civ4 bts, or Rise and fall of civilization, it was barley impossible to play on high difficulty levels, immortal and deity. The AI just outtech and outproduce you.

In this game, i have not played deity yet. But somthing tells me that there wont be a big diffrence with immortal.

And on immortal, its just intresting to play before you get monarchy.
As you are heavely caped on tech with the happines in your citys in the pre monarchy era. The bigger the city - the more it get hammers and tech, and can bild more units etc. And on monarchy its not a problem to get big citys.

In the original civ, or even rise and fall o civ. There where no such transtions, as the ai still outtech and outproduce.

In here i think with thise much bildings you have for production and tech. And with the trade units that can easly help you bild and maintain a pretty large empire.
The difficuly is shifted from impossible, to just a simcity kind of play, where you win by just having lots of bildings and citys.

After some turns you can bild a big stack, and raze the entire map, the field comander can help you do that easly. Though its fun to upgrade him with all the promotions he has.

The revolution mode is a nice one. But looks like when you can pay gold to avoid it. you can almost avoid all revolt situations.

Probabley there are somthing is wrong with the settings i play.
playing immortal
small map
ruthless ai
minor civs
rageing barbs
pangea
revmode on

probabley there could be some extra settings that can turn the game more spicey and intresting after the invention of monarchy, i just couldnot find any.

Or probabley in later eras there could be somthing intresting, but i have not made my way there, as the more you play, the easyer it gets for you to steamroller all the ai on the map. And the more unchalleging it gets, the less you want to play further.

 

[Arakhor]

You're right. Ruthless AI, minor civilisations and Revolutions all make things far harder for the AI than they do the player. Raging barbarians would probably do that too, because if the enemy civs are being constantly assaulted by barbarians or declaring war on each other at the drop of a hat, they're not exactly going to present a proper challenge to the player.

 

[topka]

Strange, I came here to cry about the game being too difficult. I haven't played for a year and now I can't make it work on Prince (used to play on Monarch). Three games happened exactly the same - around the time I can research Mathematics for those sweet Ballistas, one of my neightbours declares war because I'm a weakling. Always at the bottom of the scoreboard, barely keeping up with number of cities and having 0.2-0.4 relative military strength. They move in with 15 units and some ballistas and I start again

I don't understand how can the AI keep their tech up and have so many units at the same time. It seems they don't have a happiness problem either, because their cities get bigger.

No revolutions, No random events, No vassals

 

[Vokarya]

For what it's worth, I agree. I still am not happy with the Ancient Era. I think it is badly overbalanced towards the AI in the name of "competitiveness" and there is not enough wiggle room. I play on Noble and I find the Ancient-Classical Eras to have an overall feeling of desperation. I would like to see AI Science slowed down just enough to let the player have a shot at the early religions and Wonders.

 

[JosEPh_II]

To the OP I agree with Arakhor, those 4 Options greatly hinder the AI. Making it easier, much easier, for the experienced player. But you can't objectively compare Vanilla BtS to AND2. And basically the same goes for comparing RFC to AND2

@topka,
Are you using Tech Diffusion On? It's a powerful Option to help keep stragglers in tech afloat as long as they have neighbors.

But for the experienced Player, Tech diffusion On creates a big windfall as the OP has probably discovered.

JosEPh

 

[topka]

I do have tech diffusion on. My fifth Prince start is going well. I had a favorable location with less neighbor pressure. The happiness issue is solved by not going for Slavery ever and adopting Divine Cult. Once I made it to Ballistas to soften the big stacks it is easy. Then Coinage solves any money issues and constant expansion is possible.

Now that I know Slavery is no longer the answer to everything I think I'll be able to contest on Monarch.

 

[aggri1]

I no longer use Field Commanders (made out of Great Generals), as I felt they were a cheat. Giving the Field Commander the retreat promotions, a horse with three Flanking promotions became immortal - it would always survive a battle, even when it had almost no chance of winning. This made it very easy to harvest huge amounts of Great General Points and experience for these horses. And since the AI never seemed to use the Field Commanders properly, I turned them off despite them being a great deal of fun. This issue may have been fixed at some stage, but I haven't checked.

Perhaps try on a larger map, if you're not averse to a longer game. I am having trouble holding off the huge stacks being thrown at me, in the early medieval era.

 

[topka]

I agree on field commanders and it is still the same. The AI also never puts together an invasion force so a real challenge requires a single continent.

It is probably due to handicaps (which I never learned) that the AI always makes such massive stacks (I encountered 42 bombards the other day). That's why I put much emphasis on (kamikaze) siege weapons for collateral damage. On the other hand it makes it so the AI rarely has the money to upgrade all its units.